We were lucky to catch up with Andres Valentin Lopez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Andres Valentin, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working on projects that highlighted many of my childhood icons (even if I didn’t know their names at the time) such as Kevin Conroy and Mark Henn. Artists who maybe the large public might not know, but the fandoms who are inspired by them certainly do.

But the project that has been the most meaningful to me has to be my career spanning piece on acclaimed voice director/casting director Andrea Romano.

Andrea has worked on projects such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Freakazoid!, but I’d say her biggest fans come from her work on Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, Static Shock, Superman: The Animated Series, and (my all time favorite) Batman: The Animated Series.

During my time at DC Daily, we had the rare opportunity to sit down with Andrea for a three hour interview going over every detail of her life/career from top to bottom. But not only that, we also got some of the biggest names in voice acting to join in on our Andrea piece such as Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, Susan Eisneberg, Phil LaMarr, Clancy Brown, Diedrich Bader, Kevin Michael Richardson, Michael Rosenbaum, and so many more. All in all it was over SEVENTEEN hours of footage that I LOVED watching… but had to cut it down to one twenty minute video and an additional six minute piece.

But after a lot of trimming to find the piece that not only told her story concisely but also in a way that showed my and everyones appreciation for her, I finished it and it has to this day felt like my best work.

Cutting that project was just such an honor.

Andres Valentin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Absolutely! My name’s Andres Valentin Ortiz Lopez (it’s a fun one to say) but I mainly go by Dre.

Growing up I unfortunately was forced to move around a lot due to my father’s work so life was pretty inconsistent for a bit, but what wasn’t was my love for movies and tv.

Much like everyone else in the 90s, I grew up watching cartoons after school and Saturday mornings religiously. M-F it was 3pm-5pm and Saturdays it was 7am-11am and I was HOOKED. When I wasn’t watching those I was watching movies on repeat varying from “Beauty and the Beast” (I love animation/Disney) or “My Best Friend’s Wedding” (from my mom’s small vhs collection).

But it wasn’t really until I discovered a very well known cartoon called, “Batman: The Animated Series” that I knew where my future lied.

It was nothing like I’d ever seen. It was mature, moody, it took its time with its storytelling. The animation was stunning and it never talked down to an audience, making it accessible to every age. I’d watch it every chance I could and thought, “I want to do THAT!” I of course had no idea what “that” was, but I knew I wanted to be apart of something like it.

My father is a doctor and attended Harvard University and always wanted me to follow in his footsteps.

“You going to go to Harvard like your, dad?”

“I’m not going to Harvard! I’m going to Hollywood!”

He could’ve died right there.

I attended Rancho Bernardo High School where we were fortunate enough to have a stellar Digital Media program run by Ross Kallen. Equipped with several imacs loaded with the Final Cut 7 suite, many HD Sony EX-1’s, and a giant green screen I had every tool I needed to prepare myself for where I am now. I met so many of my lifelong friends there and if our weekends weren’t filled with shooting our short films, we were probably filming live broadcasts of our high school football team. My friends and I won second place in the 2009 “48 Hour Film Festival” and one of my shorts, “The Drawing Files,” was nominated for the 2009 “Ivie Awards.” It was one of the best periods of my life and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

In 2012 I moved from my hometown of San Diego to Los Angeles where I attended The Los Angeles Film School where I met more like minded individuals and good friends. We shot my short film “Unlimited” which was a challenging but fulfilling 4 day shoot with 110 set-ups (we got off 104). It was critically acclaimed among the faculty and students.

During my last months there I interned at the youtube channel “What’s Trending” where I became an editor there only a week after graduating.

A few months later I was offered a position at Telepictures new web series for DC Comics “DC All Access.” They were looking for someone to help with over 80 years of comic fact checking and I’d been an avid DC Comic reader since I was a kid. “Can you tell me the difference between Swamp Thing and Fables,” our EP asked me during my interview. “Oh yeah. I love Alan Moore’s run and love Bigby and Snow in Fables.” I was hired on the spot with that question. Me being an editor was just a bonus.

For the next 6 1/2 years I worked my dream job where I was paid to not only edit, but also consult on content, fact check scripts, create Top 10 lists for characters, work on huge top secret announcements like their Rebirth initiative in 2016, and work alongside some of the best industry professionals I’ve ever met. Many are still close friends. That job is truly the place where my mind goes when someone says their work is a “family.”

I rose to Senior Editor/Associate Producer and came up with new visual ways to show our comic book assets by parallaxing them. A process where I’d have to take an image into Photoshop, cut out each layer, fill in the now empty spaces where images used to appear, take all those layers into After Effects, and then use the camera to create an illusion of depth and movement. It was time consuming but always worth it to add an extra spark to our videos.

DC All Access became DC Daily in 2019 and began airing on DC Comics’ new streaming service “DC Universe,” until the show’s end in July 2020.

From there I’ve gone on to work for several great companies like ViacomCBS and Synchronous Pictures, but in 2021 I landed another childhood dream of working for Disney Digital.

I worked on Disney’s web talk show “What’s Up Disney+” where the hosts would interview talent and highlight content coming to the Disney+ streaming service. It was a challenging job but one I absolutely adored due to the content we put out and, again, the people I was lucky enough to work with.

Currently I work for Hearst and edit several types of videos ranging from game shows to interviews for several of their subsidiaries including Elle, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Seventeen.

I constantly say that my career has been a series of lucky events. I’ve been a person who has been in the right place at the right time too many times in my life to think otherwise. But if you asked any of my friends or co-workers, they’d say it’s because of my work and my personality.

“Under promise, over deliver,” is a term my good friend and old producer David Marker used to say about me. I put myself fully into my work on every project. Every first cut I do I want to look as final as possible because I admittedly am a perfectionist. I not only want the client to be happy, but I want to be proud of what I put out.

But also, much like my parallaxing idea at DC, I want the edits to be interesting and fun to me. The moment I can do something on auto pilot it becomes less interesting to me, which means it’s less interesting to the audience. You have to keep it fresh so I love to try new things.

As for my personality, “The Dre Sass,” is another term David Marker would often use. I’m very sarcastic and love telling jokes. Never meanly or against anyone, but I love to make people laugh and smile. Our lives are stressful enough, so why should our breaks from work be? I love people and getting to know them. I love asking interesting questions, not just the boring small talk. “If you had to listen to one album on a rainy day, what would it be?” Or, “You can only order four things for the rest of your life, what are they?” Stuff like that. They always lead down interesting roads full of more opportunities to get to know someone (and plenty of more jokes I can make.)

I’ve had the honor of getting to edit so many big names. Among them are Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Adam Lambert, Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda, Yvette Nicole Brown, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Raimi, Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Affleck, Jason Mamoa, Mark Hamill, Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Kevin Smith, Jeremy Irons, Ewan McGregor, Diego Luna, Ming-Na Wen, Jeff Goldblum, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ethan Hawke, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Ron Howard, and even Gonzo from the Muppets!

I’ve always had a knack for story so cutting interviews is not only easy for me, but something I adore. I love getting to the meat of peoples stories and it’s been an honor to cut every one I’ve been given.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I’m not sure about certain resources, but I’d say the greatest resources for me have come down to three things:

1. Watching movies/tv: It’s not a waste of time. It’s homework. Every cut, every line of dialogue, every choice is something you’re subconsciously taking in. If you like something, try to figure out why you do. If you felt something was bad, try to figure out why that was? Even a bad show or film can be a learning experience that you learn how to improve yourself with. Learning what not to do is just as important as learning what to do.

2. Ask your Co-workers and friends for help: At some point, they were in the same boat you were. If they’re doing something you like and you can’t figure out how to, ask them. I love teaching my friends techniques I’ve picked up or how I do something that I don’t even realize I’m doing. No one has everything figured out. Life is the longest game of improv ever played and we’re all just figuring it out. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

3. Trust your instincts: If you feel something is heading in the right direction, it probably is. If you keep second guessing something, something’s probably wrong with it. Use those dissection skills you learn from watching media. Even if you can’t figure it out right away, you know when the choices you’re making are the right ones.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I’d say my goal has always been to leave an impact on someone’s life with my art.

Along with being an editor, I’m also an aspiring writer who has written five features and two pilots on spec. I’ve been fortunate enough to place high in several contests and am still chasing that dream. Edit by day, write by night.

I think editing and writing go hand-in-hand.

Thanks to editing I know pacing. I know when something overstays its welcome, if I need a scene or a line, when I don’t, and most importantly, how to trim something down.

And thanks to writing, I know story. How to rearrange sound bites from multiple interviews or questions to make one concise and well paced thought.

I think my mission is to one day have something I make leave an impact like the one I felt at five years old.

To have another person see something I made and say to themselves, “I want to do THAT.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vimeo.com/andresvlopez
• Instagram: @dapper__dre or @developedbydre
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/andresdrelopez